Page:Cambridge Modern History Volume 2.djvu/389

 intrigue. These parties were the Bishop, the Vicedom, or civil overlord, and the citizens.

The Bishop was the sovereign of the city, elected originally by the clergy and laity jointly, later by the Cathedral Chapter, though customs significant of the older time continued to be observed. Thus the mere vote of the Chapter did not constitute the Bishop lord of the State; the election had further to be endorsed by the citizens, who accompanied the Bishop in solemn procession to the Cathedral, where before the altar and in the presence of clergy and people he swore on the open Missal that he would preserve their laws, their liberties, and their privileges. As sovereign he issued the coinage, imposed the customs, was general of the forces, and supreme judge in both civil and ecclesiastical causes. In criminal cases he exercised the prerogative of mercy, and endorsed or remitted penalties. The Cathedral Chapter formed his Council and represented him in his absence. It constituted a permanent aristocracy, and sat as a sort of spiritual peerage in the city Council. Certain castles and demesnes were assigned to the Bishop, in order that he might be as sovereign in appearance and in dignity as he was in law and in fact.

The Vicedom was captain of the Church, commissioned to repress violence in the city and to defend it from external attacks, to act in the less important civil and criminal cases, and to carry out the penalties which the law pronounced. He was not reckoned a citizen, and stood sponsor for all the foreigners who enjoyed the hospitality of Geneva. While in theory the Bishop's vassal, yet, as a matter of fact and for reasons which neither he nor the city was allowed to forget, the office had become hereditary in the House of Savoy; but as the Duke could not himself reside, his duties were discharged by two lieutenants, whose functions were carefully defined and delimited. In a word, the civil over-lord was the minister of his ecclesiastical superior; but the superior tended to become the puppet of the minister.

Apart from both stood the citizens in an order of their own. The general Council of the city, composed of the whole of the citizens, i.e. all the heads of families, met at the summons of the great bell twice each year to transact business affecting the community as such, to elect the four Syndics and the Treasurer, to conclude alliances, to proclaim laws, to fix the prices of wine and of grain. The Syndics represented the municipal independence as against the sovereignty of the Bishop and the power of the Vicedom. To them the greater criminal jurisdiction was entrusted, and they were responsible for good order within the city from sunset to sunrise. They were assisted by the Smaller Council, composed of twenty qualified citizens; and if any event too responsible for it to handle occurred, the Council of Sixty could be called, which was composed of the representatives of the several districts and the most experienced and respectable citizens. Later, and just before the