Page:English Law and the Renaissance.djvu/86

 Butzer, as this treatise shows, had some knowledge of the civil law, at least in the matter of divorce. He seems to think that a code for England might be so simple an affair that it could be put into rhyme and be sung by children. (See Mullinger, Hist. Univ. Camb., vol. II., p. 238.)

Cardwell, The Reformation of the Ecclesiastical Laws, Oxf. 1850. See p. xxvi where Fox the martyrologist (1571) testifies to the beauty of Haddon's Latin, and then says: 'Atque equidem lubens optarim, si quid votis meis proficerem, ut consimili exemplo, nec dissimili etiam oratione ac stylo, prosiliat nunc aliquis, qui in vernaculis nostris legibus perpoliendis idem efficiat, quod in ecclesiasticis istis praestitit clarissimae memoriae hic Haddonus.' On the question as to the intended fate of heretics (including both Roman Catholics and Lutherans) under the Reformatio Legum, see Hallam, Const. Hist., ed. 1832, vol. I., p. 139; Maitland, Canon Law in England, p. 178.

Commines attributes to Louis XI (circ. an. 1479) a project of reducing to uniformity all the customs of France. Francis Bacon more than once, when urging his schemes of law reform, referred to Louis's abortive project (Spedding, Life and Letters, vi. 66; VII. 362). Commines's story is not rejected by modern historians of French law. The official redaction of the various 'general customs' (customs of provinces) was commanded