We know that Matilda, after the fashion of her predecessors, administered justice in the name of the Empire, presiding in state over the tribunals. Indeed, this was one of her chief functions. Some sentences given by her have survived, and serve to show us how her tribunal was composed. Certain high feudatories had seats flanking her throne; next came the judges, assessors, pleaders (_causidici_), and witnesses, and lastly, the notary. Prof. Lami has observed that the judges, and more particularly the assessors, were changed as the countess moved from city to city, which would prove that not a few of them were inhabitants of the towns wherein they administered justice.[90] In fact, what names do we find among them in Florence? Those of the Gherardi, Caponsacchi, Uberti, Donati, Ughi, and a few others.[91] These were already the first and most influential citizens, the _boni homines_, the _sapientes_, the men we afterwards find officiating as Consuls. Thus there were certain families who first formed part of the margravial tribunal, and were afterwards at the head of the Commune. Political changes were facilitated and prepared by a juridical change, followed by the increased action of the revived Roman law. What was the nature of this change? The exact definition of the functions respectively assigned by the Germanic code to the president of the tribunal who gave sentence, or to the judges who led up to the same by administering the law, had been gradually lost sight of. Sometimes the countess pronounced sentence without the aid of judges; but more often they conducted the trial, applied the law, and formulated the verdict, to which the countess merely gave assent. Thus, as Ficker states, her office was reduced to that of a passive president.[92] This is confirmed on seeing that tribunals sometimes sat in her absence, when the trials were entirely managed by the judges. A method of this kind once adopted, Matilda's grave and numerous affairs of State, together with the continual warfare in which she was involved, must have augmented the number of the cases settled by local judges. This must have been a matter of weighty importance at a time when the administration of justice was one of the principal attributes of political sovereignty. Hence these citizen tribunals are a precursory sign of civic independence before the Commune had asserted its real autonomy and individual position. The strange dearth of documents certifying that any tribunal in Florence was presided over by Matilda during the last fifteen years of her life, serves to confirm our remarks. A similar fact is also verified in the Tuscan cities remaining faithful to the Empire; for these too had tribunals in which justice was administered, not by feudal potentates, but by citizens invested by the emperor with judicial authority.[93] These, too, served as a preliminary to communal independence, although hardly forming, as some thought, its actual beginning.