Page:English Historical Review Volume 37.djvu/586

 578 REVIEWS OF BOOKS October documents as early as the twelfth century there appears a clear knowledge of the unity of Friuli : witness such expressions as patria Foriiulii. In ch. iii Professor Leicht points out that the parliament increased its powers without ever having recourse to rebellion against the patriarch, by taking advantage of lengthy vacancies in the see or the weakened authority of its occupants, due to their personal failings or to external wars. By the middle of the thirteenth century alliances with foreign states were signed by the patriarch jointly with delegates of the parliament appointed ad hoc. It ceased to be an essentially feudal assembly and became a class organization ; by degrees it came to be known in documents as a body representative of the universitas patrie Foriiulii rather than a terminus fidelium or scrvitorum ecclesie Aquilegensis. It was unavoidable that a certain dualism should arise between the patriarch and parliament (ecclesia and patria), but though there are documentary indications of its existence, it never developed into an open breach as in other countries, for there seems to have been a growing consciousness of a common interest. In documents of 1329 one meets with such expressions as : ' consulant quod sit melius et utilius pro statu securo totius terre et servitorum ecclesie Aquilegensis ' (no. xcii) ; ' quod melius et utilius et magis honorificum esset pro d. patriarche et ecclesia Aquilegensi et statu pacifico totius terre Foriiulii ' (no. xciv) ; ' habet etiam ecclesie Aquilegensis et patrie con- suetudo ' (no. xcvii) ; and they are expressions which speak for them- selves. In the section dealing with parliamentary procedure local his- torians will be interested in the names of the noble families which are summoned as liberi and ministeriales, but the evidence of the growing importance and independence of townships and communes will probably have a wider appeal. From the beginning decisions were arrived at by majority votes and sometimes referred to small bodies of delegates, con- siliarii, the ground thus being prepared for a permanent concilium. Parlia- mentary legislation was for a long time fragmentary and intermittent, but from 1336 onward there seems to have been a desire to codify the general statutes for Friuli, a desire which was finally realized in March 1355. The ' Constitutiones Patriae Foriiulii ' were drafted in 1366, revised in 1368 and 1380, endorsed with scarcely any change by the Venetian doge in 1429, and came to be the fundamental law of Friuli until the downfall of the Venetian Republic. In the last chapter Dr. Leicht summarizes the position which the parliamentary majorities adopted towards the local political quarrels in connexion with the Guelph and Ghibelline parties and towards feuds be- tween groups of families. Despite such disturbing elements there was a constant tendency towards strengthening the unity of the state. The way for the Venetian conquest in 1420 was prepared, and that conquest was rendered almost inevitable by the financial straits of the patri- archate, which led to the raising of large loans and to other desperate financial measures creating disaffection in the commercial communes. On the other hand, parliamentary legislation had slowly eliminated from the statutes all traces of Germanic laws and customs, so that the Friuliau ' constitutiones ' were very similar to those in force in the neighbouring