Page:Bury J B The Cambridge Medieval History Vol 1 1911.djvu/346

290 comites cimiatum. They took exactly the plaoe of the Roman provincial governors, so that the city-districts also appear under the title of provinciae. Their authority extended even to the exercise of jurisdiction with the exception of such cases as were reserved to the civic magistrates, and included control of the police and the collection of taxes. The dux could at the same time be comes of a civitas in his district. At the head of the towns themselves were the curiales who, as hitherto, were bound by oath to fill their offices; and they were personally responsible for collecting the taxes. The most important official was the defensor, who was chosen from among the curiales by the citizens and only confirmed by the king. He exercised, in the first instance, jurisdiction in minor matters, but his activity extended over all the branches of municipal administration. Side by side with this Roman magistrature existed the national system which the Goths had brought with them. The Gothic people formed themselves into bodies of thousands, five hundreds, hundreds, and tens, which also remained as personal societies after the settlement. The millenarius, as of old, led the thousand in war and ruled over it jointly with the heads of the hundreds both in war and in peace. The comes civitatis and his vicar originally only possessed jurisdiction over the Romans of his own circuit, but in Euric’s time that had so far changed that he now possessed authority to judge the Goths as well in civil suits in conjunction with the millenarius: thus the later condition was prepared in which the millenarius appears only as military official. On the other hand the defensor remained a judiciary solely for the Romans.

We know but little about the officers of the central government. The first minister of Euric and of Alaric II was Leo of Narbonne, a distinguished man of varied talents. His duty comprised a combination of the functions of the quaestor sacri palatii and of the magister officiorum at the imperial Court; he drew up the king’s orders, conducted business with the ambassadors, and arranged the applications for an audience. A higher minister of the royal chancery was Anianus, who attested the authenticity of the official copies of the Lex Romana Visigothorum and distributed them; he seems to have answered to the Roman primicerius notariorum or referendarius.

The organisation of the Catholic Church was not disturbed by the Visigoth rule: rather it was strengthened. The ecclesiastical subdivision of the land as it had developed in the last years of the Roman sway corresponded on the whole with the political: the bishoprics, which coincided in extent with the town districts, were grouped under metropolitan sees, which corresponded with the provinces of the secular administration. Since the middle of the fifth century the authority of the Roman bishop over the Church had been generally recognised. Next to the Pope the bishop of Arles exercised over the Gallic clergy a theoretically almost unlimited disciplinary power. A bishop was chosen by